I'll Be The One Tonight
by Tadpole24
Summary: She looks up at him, trying to keep it together, but his head tilts just slightly, giving her permission to let go, and suddenly she can't put on the strong facade anymore. Keenler in the aftermath of 1x20.


_**I mean, the episode ended how a fanfic usually begins. I was powerless to resist. Thank you for all the lovely feedback on my other Keenler fics. Their voices are still so new, so every little bit helps :) **_

…

I'll Be The One Tonight

…

She sort of shuffles into his apartment, not really sure what to do with herself now that she's here.

"Beer?" he asks, walking past her and into the kitchen.

"Absolutely," she breathes, taking the bottle he offers her, grateful to have something to do with her hands.

"Here," he says, pushing a stool up to her, "Have a seat."

She props herself up at his breakfast bar, swivelling to face him as he takes a drink from his own beer and watches her carefully. It only strikes her then how bizarre this is. In all her years of working, she's never clicked with her colleagues. In fact, when she had worked with Ressler on that first case she'd thought that they'd be terrible partners and yet here she is, with nowhere else to go, calling Donald Ressler a friend.

And friends are honest with each other, right?

"I haven't been completely truthful these past couple of weeks."

He nods, "I figured."

She sits up straighter. So not only are they apparently friends, but he knows how to read her too. "Tom and I are over, but it's not because of my work. It's because of his."

Don frowns, but doesn't say anything, letting her continue.

She's not sure why she's offloading these details, but she knows that once she starts, she won't be able to stop. It's been building up inside of her for weeks now, this need to share everything with someone who isn't a criminal, and she's finally prepared.

"I've done some investigating, off the books. And I understand the position this puts you in, so if you don't want to hear anymore I can stop and we can just enjoy a drink." Silently she prays that he won't refuse. She needs this.

Something in Ressler's mind tells him to take the out, to back away from this information before it goes too far, but another larger part of him sees the pain in Liz's eyes and he can't say no to her. So with a slight nod of his head, he urges her to continue.

Liz tilts her head at her partner, increasingly grateful for this man and everything that he's accepting about her. With a sigh that has more to do with relief than resignation, she says, "A lot of things that I've uncovered are speculation, but some is definitive." She swigs her beer, "Tom is a trained murderer. Our whole life together, our marriage," her voice cracks, "The baby we were fighting to bring into our family – it was all a lie. It was all his _job_." She spits the word like it's poison.

Saying it out loud like this hurts like hell and she's grateful when Don reaches out to take her hand. To say he's surprised would be an understatement – he thought as much as the rest of them that Tom may have been set up to look guilty by an outside player, but hearing that he's actually everything they had feared sickens him on Liz's behalf.

"Have you told anyone else about this?"

She shakes her head, "Red already knew. But he also killed my father, so I can't exactly go to him."

She rattles it off as though it's just another fact of her life and Don finds it heartbreaking to watch as she realises her world is crumbling around her like it's a normal occurrence. "Hey, hey, we can figure this out."

It won't strike him as odd until later that he is so willing to help her, that he's willing to put his career on the line for her. In the moment, it's the right thing to do and that's how he continues to justify it.

She looks up at him, trying to keep it together, but his head tilts just slightly, giving her permission to let go and suddenly she can't put on the strong facade anymore. She's never been the type to shy away from her emotions, allowing herself to cry when she needs to, but this is something else, this is catharsis, it's cleansing and new. The tears that she had tried to force back when she had walked into her wrecked house stir up in her again and, before she knows it, she's breaking down in front of her partner.

He jumps down from his stool, pulling her down as well and wrapping his arms around her protectively while she clings to him desperately and falls apart because it's all a mess, it's a tangled mess, and she's in the middle and it hurts. She buries her head in his neck, embarrassed that she's so vulnerable right now, but he does nothing to patronise her and tell her it's all going to be okay, because he knows. He understands.

This job brings you down a lot, and it only gets worse before it starts to get better. She knows where she stands on the spectrum, and things are about to get a whole lot worse, so she counts herself beyond lucky to have Ressler as her colleague.

He presses his lips to her hair, not quite kisses but more whispers of comfort, rubbing her back until her breathing calms and the tears eventually stop. When she breaks away, she can't quite meet his gaze, but he presses a finger to the underside of her chin and tilts her head up, "Hey, this is what partners are for."

Her breath hitches at his proximity, eyes searching his for lies. But she finds none. They're so much closer than they should be, but it doesn't feel wrong. She can feel his breath on her lips, warm and tempting, and it would be so easy to just close the gap…

But he makes the decision for them both, letting his finger drop from under her chin and lowering her head down gently to place a lingering kiss on her forehead.

"One day, maybe," his deep voice rumbles, "But not right now."

She nods in agreement, letting his arms come around her once more.

She doesn't want to go home, so she knows she'll be staying here tonight. And she knows in the morning that they won't talk about this, they'll go to work in separate cars and face the day as they always do – head on.

But there will always be this moment of tenderness between them, this extra layer to their partnership that will stick with them until the next moment like this. And she'll never be more glad that she chose Ressler's door to knock on tonight.

…

_**Thoughts?**_


End file.
